[excerpt from “A Lot on My Mind”]

It was no secret that I never really considered myself Filipino. I almost didn’t even feel Filipino-American. I didn’t hide it.

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At work, I am one of the 4.5 Filipinas (one of them is mestiza) in my group. We tend to have potlucks almost every week and so my co-workers and I tend to talk a lot about food. I look back on my childhood and remember the ethnic food I used to eat and would excitedly (with a sense of pride) contribute to the section about how my mom cooks this or I remember eating this or that, etc, etc. It’s not only the food, but other little things that made me different from say my caucasian/white counterpart in my section. We talk about the little idiosyncrasies that, well, make us different-–well, to be exact, that make us more Filipino than say someone in the section who isn’t–even though we’ve (the 4.5 Filipinas) been in America for at least the last 20 years.

*

I used to spout off about how I was solely an “American”. If a customer asked me on the telephone at work what nationality I was, sure I was offended and would respond by saying that I was an “American” despite my Spanish last name. My co-worker who was born in China, is of Chinese ancestry and still has an accent, also felt the same way–that she will respond that she is an “American” to whomever asked. It’s not that I am ashamed of my heritage. It just simply doesn’t matter when it comes down to it. My job would not be done any differently if my skin were paler and my last name were Smith.

But I do recognize that I did grow up differently than someone whose parents were born and raised in this country (and even whose grandparents were born and raised in this country). My parents were raised by a different set of standards-–the standards of a different country, and that influenced how I grew up and how I think to a certain extent. Although I am not nor never had been closer to my heritage than my parents, I will never be a Filipino first, like how they are.

One of the points I have to address in an essay in my Asian American class is whether my ethnic/cultural origins have a bearing on my self-identity. While, I do not fully see myself as being Filipino-American, I now do not see myself as just fully American. I feel that I lie somewhere in the middle of that spectrum that I have yet to label.